At least 12 people have died after a cloud of blistering gas erupted from Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano.

Another 50 people were injured when the volcano erupted sending an ash cloud over a mountainside village on the island of Java on Friday.

Blasts from the volcano have now killed 56 people this week.

Friday's eruptions were said by the country's volcanoligists to be the largest so far.

Thousands evacuated

More than 75,000 people have been evacuated from the danger zone around the volcano.

The danger zone was widened from 10 to 15km from the peak on Thursday after an eruption gave concern for a heightened threat.

Before this year Merapi last erupted in 2006, when it sent an avalanche of pyroclastic ash - hot gases and rock fragments - racing down the mountain and killing two people.

A similar eruption in 1994 killed 60 people, while 1,300 people died in an eruption in 1930.

There are more than 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which are spread across 17,500 islands.

The country is prone to eruptions and earthquakes due to its location within the so-called Ring of Fire - a series of fault lines stretching from the western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia.